[...]
Su Señoría reina de los jardines*, Who sets the city on fire**, while causing a little ! in Her subjects' hearts,
At first I thought to dispense with naming the many beautiful things that compound un facetado diamantino tan bonito como el Suyo, my lady and master, since I have not the necessary talent to write lists of pretty things like those lists of, just to name one, Walt Whitman†:
[Por las salinas, por los naranjales o las sombras de los pinares,
[...]
Complacido con la gente del país y con los extranjeros, contento con lo nuevo y lo viejo,
Contento con la mujer envejecida y contento con la que es linda,
[...]
Caminando esa misma tarde con la cabeza alzada hacia las nubes por una callejuela o
[por la playa,
Paseando del brazo de dos amigos y yo en el medio,
[...]
Lejos del campamento, estudiando las huellas de los animales o de los mocasines,
Junto a la cama en el hospital, sirviendo limonada al que tiene fiebre,]
(Dios mío, qué bonito es el último verso.)
Pero no puedo evitarlo, voy a enumerar igualmente. "¿Me contradigo? Muy bien, me contradigo."†
:-))
y, muy deficientemente, nombro como elementos de la gran composición visible que es un ángel como Vd. los primeros que me vienen a la mente, en el orden en que se me aparecen (si bien no es que ninguno tenga más mérito que otro elemento por el hecho de aparecer antes):
* una ҉ sonrisa ҉ que hechiza
* Sus ҉ ojos ҉ luminosos y despiertos, ante cuyos rayos tengo que retirar la mirada, confundido
* una ҉ forma tan elegante y cuidada de vestir ҉ que me hace temer que los demás presentes me amonesten por no poder dejarla de contemplar
* Su suave ҉ acento ҉
* los ҉ cabellos ҉ , y color y forma de los mismos, arrebatadores, como sin duda Vd misma sabe
* la ҉ garganta ҉ de una Afrodita o Diana o Apollo de las que esculpieron aquellos grandes artistas
* el ҉ conjunto de Su cuerpo ҉ , unas formas sublimes que mueven a la piedad y el temor a Sus servidores
* lo que se adivina como preciosas ҉ manos ҉ , aunque desde la distancia no podía verlas
* la cálida nieve del ҉ rostro ҉ ‡
* una ҉ gracia del movimiento ҉ comparable (y al comparar, superior) a la de la Victoria que esculpieron tras Samotracia, o del David de Miguel Ángel y cuyas fotos incorporo para contraponerlas con Su Señoría:
[...]
, and above all, ҉ a demeanor, and general attitude ҉ so charming as to cause such a great effect as it is already falling upon me.
Milton spoke֍ of greatness (although unrelated to this I am talking about), which I think is applicable to Your Honor, Queen of Gardens:
"[...] Not Babylon,
Nor great Alcairo such magnificence
Equall'd in all their glories"
, and that is what I feel seeing You with those great looks of You, and hearing You talking to others. Oh, that voice of Your Honor...
And then...
I also see Your smile and the other visible corporeal, physical attributes (those ҉ eyes ҉ of Yours, the free hair, Your face, everything I mentioned above), as impressive as the incorporeal ones, and I wonder at the mystery of Your mind working, interacting with we mere mortals, in awe hearing the waves of Your voice, one of the physical media with which Your spirit communicates with us.
---
I already know that it is impossible to get closer to Your Honor as much as I would, and it is true that that makes me a bit sad. Petrarca wrote that Cupid says, about the effect on those who are deeply moved by persons like You‡:
[write down in golden letters what you've seen [escribe en letras de oro lo que viste;
how I change those who follow me in color cómo a mis seguidores hago palidecer
and in an instant make them live and die.] y en un mismo instante los vuelvo muertos y
vivos.]
OK, it is a bit of an exaggeration that part about the dead, isn't it. But that about the change in color and feeling bad when meeting Your Grace it is something that surely happens, at least to this follower of Yours. Despite the fear that I feel, I cannot agree with Love when he says‡ [yo me nutro de lágrimas]; on the contrary, those who adore You, my governor, must be happy for getting to know about You and met You and for this we are bound to devote to You beautiful thoughts, like this one‡:
[Flowers joyful and glad, fortunate grass [Alegres y felices flores, afortunadas hierbas
on which my lady used to walk in thought, que, pensativa, mi señora pisar suele;
shore that would listen to her words of sweetness prado que escuchas sus dulces palabras,
conserving traces of her lovely foot,]. y del bello pie algún vestigio guardas;].
We may always object that the visible part, Your beauty, dominates us... But a Persian mystic replied to this (or so they say J Rūmī wrote)¶:
[The body moves by means of the spirit, but you do not see the spirit: Know the spirit through the body's movement!]
Some day I will dare to ask Your Honor for a hearing in which to make some offerings, madonna, like a beautiful book of the arts (there are true jewels, things so impressive!), or a ticket for some museum, exhibition, movie, ballet or anything You may like. Until now, I didn't gather enough strength :-( , since there is the risk that this could happen to me‡‡:
[...]
, deservedly, of course.
With envy of the little insect that overpasses Your Honor while reading this letter, and great interest in Your health and that of Your friends and family, and wishing that Your days are devoid of sorrow, Your
devout admirer
--
Notes
* Cantar de los Cantares, 8.13, Biblia de Jerusalén. Barcelona: Desclée De Brouwer, 2009.
** Anonymous epigram, in 'The Greek Anthology' translated by W R Paton, 1916, book V, 2, 1.
† Adapted from W Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass' and José Martí & Jorge Luis Borges's translations.
‡ Adapted from Francesco Petrarca, Petrarch Songs and Sonnets, A Bilingual Selection, translated by Richard Kilmer (London: Anvil Press Poetry, 2011), Petrarch: The Canzoniere, or Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta, translated by Mark Musa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), and Atilio Pentimalli's translation (Barcelona: Ediciones Orbis, 1998): CLVII, 9; XCIII, 2-4; XCIII, 14; CLXII, 1-4.
֍ John Milton's Paradise Lost, 1674 edition, i. 717-9
¶ Jalāl Rūmī's Masnavi IV, 155, apud William C Chittick's The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1983. Page 28.
‡‡ [...]
[...]
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